That is the question — for the very few people who are somehow ambivalent about which brand should get their business. Most potential buyers already have their minds made up, even before the ☰ springs from the cake March 31. What makes TeslaMondo so sure about this?

EVs are statements. When you buy abnormal transportation, you believe you’re saying something, about a bunch of things. You are philosophically invested in the purchase. The car affects your social image, and your self-image, much more than a normal car does.* And so you don’t make the decision lightly. Choosing Bolt vs ☰ isn’t like choosing Camry vs Accord. It’s more like choosing a president. Try finding someone who is ambivalent about Trump vs Sanders vs Clinton.

EV buyers, even newcomers, are tech-savvy and therefore net-savvy. They read lots of sites and peruse lots of forums. They know more about Tesla than the average man on the street. And most importantly, they know GM is trying to hassle Tesla. They might know the details (the Bolt photo-ops near Tesla HQ, the Barra jab during the Bolt debut, the GM letters to state pols about banning Tesla, the Bob Lutz dissage**), but even if they don’t know the details, they’re probably aware of some friction, and they’ve already decided how to vote with their wallets.

An EV purchase usually isn’t urgent.Very few people will order a Bolt just because they’re hard-up for wheels and can’t wait for a Tesla ☰. These buyers aren’t poor or transportation-deprived. If TeslaMondo is wrong about this, and GM really does grab a first-mover advantage, then watch for a flood of three-year-old Bolts hitting the used market circa 2020 as people try to get into a ☰, or even a Y. By then, the Gig should hit full song. Tesla products should be readily-available.

GM has shown its cards. That’s the problem with going first. So how strong is GM’s hand? TeslaMondo sees a pair of sevens. Like, wow.

*With time, of course, EVs will become normal transportation.
**He’s still considered a GM guy.

*Editor’s Note: This and other Tesla-related posts appear on TeslaMondo. Check it out here.

175 responses to "Chevrolet Bolt Sooner Or Tesla Model 3 Later?"

Yup. Do a 24 month lease on a Bolt in the fall of 2016, and by the fall of 2018 Tesla will probably be just getting to your reservation (unless you are already a Tesla owner who lives in California and gets a properly optioned version).

It will be both for many consumers looking to sooner rather than later get into an affordable EV that has 200+ miles AER. It’s no secret that many are thinking along these lines:

Step 1:
Purchase/Lease a Chevy Bolt.

Step 2:
Go ahead and place now a $1000 deposit reservation on Tesla Model 3.

Step 3:
Enjoy your Bolt for 2-3 years…it surely will be a great car considering the great job Chevy did with the Volt.

Step 4:
If after 2-3 years Bolt has access to an established supercharger network then likely to continue to enjoy your Bolt or purchase/lease a new Bolt and request refunde of your $1000 Tesla Model 3 deposit reservation. If no access to supercharger network then trade Bolt in (using your $1,000 deposit reservation) for a Tesla Model 3.

My above comment basically is a restatement of what @Nix said except I’m giving Chevy benefit of doubt that they will pull a rabbit out of the hat somehow regarding supercharger network prior to Model 3 availability.

Planning to reserve a Model 3 at 10am next Thursday, but may revisit the decision when it’s revealed a few hours later, and again when the Bolt ships. I guess there should also be some announcement from Nissan between now and then.

Yeah, the Bolt and Model 3 are taking the attention now, but I believe Nissan will have quite the compelling EV with the next gen LEAF. They have been the leaders in affordable mass produced EVs, and I understand their aim is to keep it that way. Not saying the Model 3 won’t be better, but lets see what the leader does.

So much focus on GM vs. Tesla, but Nissan has to keep the info they put out low key, as they have a BEV near this price they still need to sell some this year. SparkEV is low volume, not 50 state, and much smaller so GM doesn’t have to worry about that as much.

How many can GM make? And why not do like Tesla and let people reserve it for $1000 down? The answer is simple. GM can not guarantee that they will satisfy all the ones who will put money down. Simply because they have no battery factory of their own.

Give me a break! You’re talking about GM here which sold 19 million vehicles last year. GM can build as many Bolts as it can find buyers for.

To give you an example of what the big auto makers can do, Ford sold 400,000 1964 Mustangs the first full year it was available. Ford was only planning to sell a quarter of that amount but had to gear up when demand was high. If GM really puts on a marketing bliss and the Bolt attains high levels of popularity, Bolt sales could astound us all.

What’s the difference between GM needing extra batteries and Ford needing an extra 300,000 engine blocks in 1964? None! What do manufacturers do when demand runs high? They outsource.

A manufacturer that sells 19 million vehicles a year has a lot better chance of finding successful outsource vendors than a company that sells 50,000 vehicles a year. Doesn’t LG Chem have some idle factories? Of course since the Bolt is not yet available and therefore there is no measurable demand this discussion is purely academic.

The difference is that the Mustang shared the same “Thriftpower Six” engine as multiple other Ford models, like the Bronco, E-Series van, Ranchero, Falcon, etc. And also shared engine parts with many more Ford/Lincoln/Mercury products.

So Ford didn’t have to ramp up production from 100K to 400K. Ford had already made millions of these engines over the years, and had well-established supply lines and production they could spool up and down, and production lines they could simply shift from building one engine to another.

They simply added more folks building this specific engine at the Lima engine plant, and with a big yawn built more engines.

This isn’t the same at all with building battery packs, where they aren’t shared with something like the Chevy Silverado, and they don’t have existing battery pack production lines that can be swapped from making battery packs from something like a Malibu EV to a Bolt EV, the way Ford could shift engine production on an existing line in Lima Ohio.

While it initially would seem that parts are parts, just make more parts is the answer, it isn’t that simple.

This is actually one of the future economies of scale that needs to happen for EV’s and PHEV’s to come down in price.

Right now GM has to dedicate floor space and production and stock to build a battery pack for just one vehicle, the Bolt. Much of that drivetrain is for just that one car.

Everything is much more of a gamble. If sales don’t do well, they can’t just slip those batteries into a Ford Falcon, the way Ford could with their Mustang engines if they overbuilt. So GM can’t over-build production without much more risk.

Tesla is a dwarf comparing to any other established car maker. They have to wait for the GF because they have no other alternative plan and invest in it all they have, even what they don’t have yet.
If GM wants to ramp up the Bolt Production, many battery manufacturers will be more than pleased to make business with them. As we have seen , aMega factory takes lees than a year to build. Supply will not be a problem.

Agreed, supply won’t be the Bolt’s problem vs the Model ≡, it will be demand. Tesla’s core mantra “encourage the advent of the electric vehicle”. How do they do that? Deliver a far more compelling car than anyone else, to force the competition’s hand. They’ve been doing it with the Model S, it’s clearly the same with the Model X, so we’ll see this again with the Model ≡. The Bolt simply won’t be as good a car.

Nothing to worry, my friend. When Tesla can’t sell its Model 3, it can sell the excess cells from its pilot GIGA factory to GM. Or may be, GM will buy the pilot GIGA factory if Tesla is bankrupt by M3 time. Are you happy now?

“Give me a break! You’re talking about GM here which sold 19 million vehicles last year. GM can build as many Bolts as it can find buyers for.”

Nope. GM is production constrained by how many batteries LG Chem can supply. When asked, a GM spokesman expressed the opinion that they could ramp up quickly to 50,000 per year.

As I understand it, LG Chem makes contracts for quantity battery sales at least two years in advance. It would be quite literally impossible for GM to ramp up Bolt production very fast, unless they did something drastic like contract with a different supplier for more batteries… and they’re not gonna do that since they’re getting a “sweetheart deal” on battery prices from LG.

50k per year is a far cry from the ~400k per year that Tesla plans to make by 2020. Personally I think the reality will lag behind, because Tesla is always late on production, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Tesla hits that number in 2021 or 2022.

And as has been said many times: GM doesn’t want to sell that many compelling long-range EVs. They don’t want plug-in EVs cutting into sales of their popular, and more profitable, gasmobiles. They wouldn’t make the Bolt a volume seller even if they could.

I doubt GM will need to make over 50K/yr. Why waste money on more expensive Bolt when Model3 will have far better charging infrastructure? Only reason for GM to make more is if Tesla screw up Model3 somehow.

Simply, GM isn’t yet willing to commit the capex necessary to build more. LG Chem’s total capacity through 2017 is likely around 120,000 long range BEVs, but they’re already contracted to build many PHEV and low range BEVs. So GM’s allocation is far less than that, likely around 30,000 Bolts in 2017 and increasing a bit after that. They’ll have to commit about $1 billion dollars per 6-7 GWh or 100-120k or so vehicles and the lead time is more like 2-2.5 years depending on where the plant is built. Often, the cell production lines come online in phases so it takes a while to achieve full capacity.

Even if they did; there needs to be a factory somewhere to produce a lot of batteries. The only factory we have now is Tesla’s.

When will GM take that giant step and gamble. Even if they want to; where will they get the money from? They where supported by the tax payer to stay alive. So there is no chance for them to get the money to make a battery factory. Even if they sell some of their factories around the world. It takes time to make a factory. How will they over come all these problems. Sure they can make a few electric cars here and there, and good ones too. It is a completely different thing to make a lot of electric cars.

How can you be so naive? GM currently has a price to earnings ratio of 5.24, that means that are making a profit, a lot of profit. Tesla cash flow is still negative which means they need barrow money to pay their bills.

GM is in a much better position to make any kind financial expenditure necessary to gear up for demand.

GM has a problem with its brand. Yes they produce a lot more cars than Tesla. But nobody will purchase their cars because all their parts are outsourced, and there is no quality control in what they do. They just have to rely on the word of their suppliers that things will work out for their cars.

I am a big fan of Tesla, but let’s be honest- They outsource for as many components as possible too. To claim that they do not is simply disingenuous.

I am fairly brand agnostic personally. Though I would prefer to support Tesla, I operate in an urban environment and drive subcompacts by choice. I have a feeling that the 3 will simply be too large for my needs.

” ‘I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.’”
50 years later. Same demographic. Same attitude. Different subject.

Tesla is a small company .They are RE-Investing all there profits back into the company ie: Superchargers , Gigafactory & so on ,Hence the reason they can’t show a Profit., Yet!…In other words they are not loosing money .. They building a company ., Putting the money back into Tesla….GM would have never succeeded After they WENT BROKE., had they started from scratch like TESLA did….

You’re ignoring how capital intensive the business of mass producing automobiles is. I’m pretty sure GM has a lot more liquid reserves than Tesla does. GM could certainly build its own battery factories, and very likely could do so faster that Tesla is… if they actually wanted to.

And someday, GM will have to do just that, if they want to stay in business. But you can be sure they’ll put it off as long as they think they can. Unfortunately, GM is demonstrating short-term thinking by contracting with LG for batteries, instead of building their own battery factories.

It’s the same thing that happens in every disruptive tech revolution. It’s sadly inevitable that some current market leaders will put off investing in the new tech until it’s too late for them to catch up. That’s why Kodak went bankrupt, and why the Stanley Motor Carriage Company — makers of the once best-selling Stanley Steamer — is no longer in business.

I will congratulate GM and others if they build battery factories, because we need many to be independent from oil. Mercedes announced recently that they will build a battery factory. I do not know if GM has the money or not, but if they do have enough liquidity now as you mention, I hope they use it wisely. It will be a shame if they ask for help from the tax payer again.

GM invested more money in Lyft than Tesla has in the Gigafactory. Also GM has about $23 billion in cash and short term investments. So they have the money if necessary. But more than likely they would just sign a contract with LG. I’m sure GM’s contract with LG has provisions for thresholds in cell manufacturing. LG will not look for additional capacity after GM has sold 50k Bolts. GM and LG will monitoring sales closely.

Toyota is the company that COULD produce a really great ev, but they’re focused on the Mirai, in my view, a big strategic mistake. Yes the car is big and Luxurious, and the head of CARB goes GAGA over her Mirai, but for the States at least its never going to have a huge impact, unless it is FORCED to be liked.

(They already voted it Green Car of the year, so the forcing has already started).

But GM, somewhat late to the serious EV game – was brought to the game by the Japanese. EV’s with the BIG 3 were always ‘just around the corner’, and we still wouldn’t have many ev’s if it weren’t for the fact that Japan misinterpreted GM’s bluff and THEY became serious with cars like the Insight and Prius.

Now, at least GM is trying to catch up – with the biggest offerings of Real EV’s you can REALLY Drive. I own 2 of them myself.

The BOLT, when it is released for sale, will be like NOTHING that has ever existed on the market for the price.

I don’t see why you guys say they don’t want to make cars since GM is the only one who has its neck sticking out, much further than even Tesla.

Since you addressed me I feel that I have to answer. I am not against GM or any other. I am also not for Tesla or any other. I simply wish to live in peace. We have to get rid of our addiction to oil. Tesla is the only company that is doing a serious effort. Even if the total sales of Tesla and others from the EV is so insignificantly small today, I am hoping that we will have a turning point soon. I see it coming. GM sees it coming too. Toyota too. The difference between us three here is simple. I want to get rid of oil today if possible. GM wants to do that gradually and Toyota will do anything it can to change GM’s and my mind. But to say that Toyota doesn’t see what the future is like is foolish. Japan will go through a dramatic deflation because of this EV stuff. No need for fuel tans, cylinder heads etc. I understand them. Just ask yourself what would you do if you have to crate jobs for all these people? It is a problem. The same thing goes for the Arabs. How will they live if no one buys their oil? The answer is much simpler than most people think. If we carry on making fuel tanks and cylinder heads and extract oil and burn it, then we ALL are going to suffer badly. It is unfortunate but could be the only way out if stay alive. Some will suffer but some will live. This is a better state than ALL die.

Please leave me out of your addictions. Until I bought some ev’s , I didn’t really drive a gasoline powered car that much, usually prefering my bicycle if I could get away with it.

And since teens drink bottled water which is no better than the tap water around here for many times the price of oil, I’d say teens are addicted to water (or at least a fancy label), and not oil.

I buy oil when I decide that I would like to buy some. If I don’t like the price, etc then I don’t buy it. I’m hardly addicted to it, never have been, and I’d say most people are not ‘addicted’.

Now drugs: that is something people are addicted to. On the news programs every single commercial is about another drug you can take (along with a fast talking disclaimer that you will either die from taking it, be paralyzed or else have liver, kidney, and heart trouble). Since people rarely have to pay the full cost of the drugs, they get them and ‘socialize’ the rest of the price. But not me. They also don’t pay any attention to clearly obvious environmental issues, such as the diseased, bloody fish (blood from their eye sockets, etc) at the west coast of the US and Canada.

Tesla is selling very expensive, extreme performance, luxury cars with average selling prices north of 100k…it is not a mass market item, like the BMW 7 series, S Class, Audi A8, etc… And it is outselling those makes.

Volume naturally increases with the Model 3 as it is much lower priced.

But if Tesla sells 300,000 in the first year or so (delivery might be a different issue) and GM sells 30,000 Bolts, it’s going to cast things in a whole different light, and investors might start to ask some pointed questions.

No it’s actually not that simple GM is a manufacturer with dealer franchisees therefore current law dictates they sell vehicles through dealerships so they would have to get all of their dealers on board to collect $1,000 deposits which would sit in the dealer’s pocket and guarantee you the buyer nothing because the dealer is just that and not the manufacturer

My Leaf lease is over in July, so I wait for a Bolt lease a few months, since I have another car (truck) to fill in. I’ll also be ordering a Telsa, and if the Tesla arrives sooner than the lease is up for the Bolt (very unlikely IMHO), then the Bolt shifts left to my wife who leases a Spark EV, coming off lease at exactly the same time.

At the end of it all, if the Tesla is here and GM and others don’t have an answer for faster charging, then I’ll be getting another Tesla for purchase, and I’ll be done, out of the lease world.

Then I’ll either be ready for the 4th gen EVs in 10 years or a new model pine box.

Wow, no bias in this author. Not that Tesla Mondo wouldn’t be biased, but wow. So if the Bolt really sells well, then three years later, there will be a flood of used ones as people rush to the obviously superior Model III? Sounds like maybe I should wait until then and pick up a used Bolt for a song!

And what about the third option – a Leaf 2.0 sometime in between. Even though it hasn’t been formally announced (only teased) yet, I suspect that Nissan will appear with the Leaf 2.0 sometime after the Bolt launch but before the Model III launch.

As far as myself, I’m one of those strange enthusiasts who is happy in my current car for a little while longer. I will probably wait until I can test drive all three (Bolt/Model III/Leaf 2.0) before making my next purchase. Who knows, I may even buy used next time.

Hi Brian, can you make an educated guess at what this supposed “Leaf 2.0” is supposed to be? Other than the 60 kwh battery I mean.

Nissan seems to have gone the longest with a given design (i.e. the world’s most popular BEV) than anyone else. I’m sure by now the design is fully amortized.

Ghosn keeps plugging EV’s, but he sure isn’t in a great hurry to come up with even a second model. Did he put another DeNyschen-esque guy in charge of this stuff? That dude hates EV’s. He killed the current Caddy ELR after a 4 month run, if that. I’m sure it would have died earlier if he had been hired earlier.

You’re right! Who’s to say GM doesn’t have another EV in the works that would follow the Bolt in a year or two. Also if the Bolt is a big success there could be 150k – 200k Bolts on the road by 2020. That’s a big deal.

> From what I’ve read, GM and LG can only build enough batteries for 50,000 Bolts a year.

So can Tesla. Your point?

GF initial operational capacity will be something like ~14% of total, so in 2017 they will have capacity to build ~14% of 500k (total capacity of complete GF), so about 70k cars/year? They will still get batteries from Panasonic for MS and MX, but M3 will be ~70k. The rest of the factory has to be build.

If there will be a demand larger than a supply, LG will build more factories, they recently build another in 2 years. There is no magic, they know how to do that.

LG and GM will know if they need to start building a year before M3 is released, at worst they will have year to year and a half delay.

Also, there is currently a large overcapacity in automotive battery factories. That will give them some buffer.

“Also, there is currently a large overcapacity in automotive battery factories. That will give them some buffer.”

Not if the reason that some battery makers have significant unused capacity is because nobody will pay their high prices. The reason everybody is rushing to buy LG Chem’s new batteries is because they’re a lot cheaper per kWh. And obviously Tesla plans to compete on price, with the Gigafactory. Even Nissan decided to revamp its own battery factories, apparently for using licensed LG Chem tech, rather than buying batteries from LG or some other third party, after a long and surprisingly public debate within Nissan. Tesla rather publicly flirted with using Samsung for a secondary battery cell supplier, but so far as I know, they never did buy any significant amount from anyone other than Panasonic.

All this talk of “unused capacity” really ignores just how price-sensitive EV makers are when it comes to buying EV batteries. EV makers are not going to go to another source and pay significantly more than they’re paying their main supplier. EV profit margins are thin (or even nonexistent) enough as it is, and batteries are a major cost component of long-range EVs.

The 14% of the full Gigafactory (about 7GWh) exceeds all of LG Chem’s capacity including their announced expansions through 2017. Add to that roughly another 5-6 GWh (we don’t know the full expansion level) from Panasonic’s Osaka plants and Tesla will have almost double LG Chem’s capacity. LG’s output is also divvied up a bunch and much of it is building a different kind of cell chemistry for PHEVs.

The Bolt absolutely is not DOA, regardless of how good the Model ≡ is. The Bolt will be available sooner, and there will be a long wait time to get a Model ≡. Furthermore, lots of people would rather buy from a long-established auto maker like GM than a newcomer like Tesla.

I have every confidence that GM can sell a measly 25-30k Bolts per year, or even 50k. GM has no plans to ramp up production in future years to match the Model ≡, or to match the production volume of one of GM’s own best-selling gasmobiles.

Not that it’ll ease your mind at all, Breezy, but I continue to call it the Model E.
Fuck Ford and their unused patent, play Nice and sell it for a buck, it means Nuthin’ to you anyway and it would almost certainly have paid off in ‘niceness’ media coverage, as Elon would have mentioned it in one of his 3.1415926 Million tweets!

Wow, I understand this is an Op-Ed and Tesla Mondo is Tesla’s cheerleader. But Why play the victime card again?

The Bolt is agreat attempt to make EV available to the mass.

It is also a great techno package for the price point.

The Model 3 has been the carrot Tesla has been holding up for a long time, they better deliver and expectation from the Tesla fanboy is high, they can’t repeat another Model X fiasco where they announced a car and can’t deliver the keys to clients yearS later.

Give koodoos to GM for presenting a package and making available to the mass within a record time for a new car/platform.

At the end, there is no bad EV as long as we remove another ICE from the road.

Yea, that’s why there’s model Xs filling the Tesla Service Centers across the country and driving Rangers to drink over their terrible quality control. More than 1/2 of them have developed issues with their silly gull-wing doors that either won’t open or worse get stuck wide-open and you can’t drive. Leaking hydraulic cylinders, bent metal, broken glass… Go read all about it for a few hours over on the Tesla forums and come back and tell us how great the Model X is

The X use the same platform as the S, it use the same technologie as the S. The delay sit squarely on the funky doors…

The Model 3 is a new platform as the Bolt is, the Bolt is being built now, the Model 3? We will learn this week and I hope for the fanboy that you are that Tesla can break from its habit of delayed delivery.

As for the tech package, well time and price will show us how right you are

While I agree with much of this article, I think there’s something being left out. There are a lot of EV owners like me who don’t really care about the badge on the front of the car as much as the fact that EV’s are more efficient and save money over ICE counterparts. While I root for Elon and Tesla and follow Tesla’s progress as much as the next, I do drive a Volt- yet I’m not a fan of GM. But I can’t afford a Tesla (my preference) so I drive a GM. Being financially pragmatic, at the end of the day it comes down to the best product. EV folks like to debate over which is better: Leafs, Volts, i8’s, Teslas, etc. But in the end, as my fellow EV buddy pointed out to me awhile back, all EV’s are on the same team.

And by the way, in my opinion Elon is just as responsible for the new Bolt as he is the Model 3. He got this entire ball rolling. Without him, everyone would still be gushing over the antiquated Prius..

For my case, the purchase would be urgent. My Ford Focus Electric lease is up in Summer 2017. All signs point to the Bolt being the only 200-mile EV available then. If the Model III were available then, it would absolutely get a strong look, but I doubt that will be the case.

This is the first time I’ve ever heard someone suggest releasing a product 1 to 2 years before your competition is a bad thing. Someone has drunk the Kool-Aid. Perhaps Tesla should delay a couple more years to see what Ford, Mercedes, and Tata Motors come out with.

I see this as a difficult choice. On one hand, the bolt can only charge at 50 KW/H meaning that for long trips, you need to charge for 90 minutes for every 3 hours of drive time. And that’s assuming that you can find a 50 KW CCS charger, which right now is unlikely (at least on the east coast). GM has stated that they aren’t going to support the charger infrastructure so there is no short term help for this. On the other hand, Teslas do not have a good reliability rating. From what I understand, there have been many problems with their cars, and this is at low production volume. When they try to ramp up to thousands, problems will be exacerbated and support will most likely suffer.

I was quoting the 90 minute number to a full charge from GM. This would include the trickle charge at the end, so is not an “80% charge”. But either way – 1 hour or 90 minutes is quite a bit for a 3 hour drive. And as I said, the CCS chargers are few and far between and most of those are 25 KW so the 1 hours would be actually be 2 hours for a 3 hour drive.

You really think the model 3 will charge at the same rate as the discontinued S60? That’s funny.

Besides, the CCS charging network not so much a network as a smattering of chargers in metro areas poorly located for longer trips.

I really hope the Bolt does well as I do believe any BEV purchase is better for all of us than another ICE car on the road. However, IF someone were interested in the Bolt and the model 3 and wanted to use it for longer trips, discounting the advantage of the supercharger network’s better coverage and faster charging is unsupportable.

I disagree with the point of this article. I find it hard to decide between the two vehicles based on educated guesses so far.

I dislike GM more than most yet the Bolt seems like the best sounding car so far. I have no issues with it other than GM refusing to deploy chargers. Makes me question the entire vehicle and their commitment to EVs.

On the other hand, I fear the Model 3 will be too cramped inside with low and sleek look but little headroom with poor visibility. And it won’t be available for another year at best. I think it will be closer to mid to end 2018 before it actually shows up.

There’s also the LEAF 2 which will certainly make an appearance before year end 2016, if only an unveiling.

I think you are right to think the model 3 might be slower to market for many than Tesla is hoping. Their history indicates that is likely and until they can prove otherwise, it’s reasonable to expect delays.

I also agree with you on the space issue. The model S’s I’ve driven and been a passenger in have poor rear headroom. The pano roof does help, but the city car hatchback design of the Bolt simply results in better headroom. However, not so much for legroom usually.

There is a lot of trust Tesla fans are exhibiting here. You’re assuming that: the Model 3 comes out close to the promised date, and not 2+ years late like the Model X; that the low end Model 3s (that would compete with the Bolt) will actually be available soon thereafter instead of a lot later (Tesla has already said the most expensive configurations will be built first); and that the sight-unseen Model 3 will have specs that compete well with the Bolt. And none of that addresses the open questions of the maintenance plan for the Model 3. Will they do the same thing they do for the luxury cars – pick it up at your house and drop off a loaner? That’s quite a bit of overhead for a $35k car. Will the routine maintenance costs be as high as the Model S? What about supercharger access?

It all depends who applies the $7500 tax credit to the lease as a capitalized cost reduction. GM has a history of not doing this. Tesla has no finance wing, so it doesn’t dictate lease structure.

I’m sorry, but while everyone else is thinking Bolt vs Model 3, I think I may have to consider ::throws up a little in mouth:: the Nissan LEAF. NMAC has always applied at least $7500 to capitalized cost reduction. BMW also started doing this as well. Ford has always been doing it.

Lease-to-own is the best way to capture the tax credit savings without having to qualify for the full tax credit.

GM refused to give me the 7500 on my 2017 Volt lease, so i said f that and bought it. So i get 7500 federal and a 2000 state credit. Cheaper to buy and unload in three years than the lease for three years.

Another thing about the Leaf, at least in my region, is there are many more Chademo stations along my most traveled routes compared to either CCS or Supercharger. That’s not a big consideration though as I know that could change. Ten years each of these ‘fast’ standards might be comparativley slow to a subsequent standard.

It is funny to see people so wrapped up in Bolt vs. Model 3. I suspect some of the people commenting who are most passionate about a single brand might not be old enough to drive. Teslmondo and others don’t even mention Leaf 2.0 even though Nissan will probably beat Tesla to market. GM and Tesla don’t have to worry about the Osborne Effect as much as Nissan — since neither have a BEV in this price range that they are already selling. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have way more info from them about 2.0 by the time the Bolt hits dealers.

I plan to put a deposit down on the Model 3, but intend to cancel and get that money back if a better option comes along.

I prefer Renault ZOE, half price and rumors next years owners get for 4000 Dollar a range upgrade to 150 miles and a 40 kWh battery (battery rental remains). In Europe you can charge the Zoe with AC very fast nearly everywhere, also Model 3 will not be able to do that.

I have always kept my cars a very long time, usually 10+ years. When I bought my FFE that was the first time I bought a car knowing I would want to get rid of it when a better model came along. I bought instead of lease because I got a much better deal on a used low mileage purchase than I could have with a new vehicle lease.

But the next generation EVs will have capabilities far beyond the first generation. If my next EV has a 200+ mile range and fast charging I can see keeping the car for the foreseeable future. The only way I see myself selling after this is if EV car sharing really takes off and I decide to get completely out of vehicle purchases.

Me, too. I get tired of all the talk about style and performance. Style has never been a factor in any vehicle purchase I have made. I have even bought pickups when I needed them, though they look more ridiculous than any car seeing how they look like half the back was chopped off!

A mix of reliability, efficiency, safety and comfort is what matters to me. I would like to support Tesla but that is only a very small contributor to my decisions.

Yep, the things you mention rank much higher on my list than exterior styling. I am interested if Tesla sticks with a sloped rear roofline like the S and X have. It helps on highway range, but reduces cargo space and often times headroom for rear passengers. Same with the Volt. I really like it but wish they would have made gen II a dorky wagon.

I am surprised nobody mentioned the 7500$ tax credit running out for the 3. Won’t normal production of the S and X mean just about all the Tesla rebates will be finished by the time the 3 is avaiable? Assuming you can get the credit on the Bolt (and a couple 1000 of in addition) and also assuming a decently optioned 3 is running close to the mid 40k range, then you are kinda getting into and apples to oranges comparison. An extra 10-12,000$ makes for a pretty hefty car payment.

Yes. It’s questionable that even early buyers of the Model ≡ will qualify for full $7500 federal income tax credit, especially if (as I suspect) actual volume production of the Model ≡ doesn’t happen until mid-2018 or even later. If some early buyers do get full credit, the remaining full credits will be quickly depleted.

But the tax credit doesn’t disappear all at once, so hopefully some early buyers will get at least half-credit, and then quarter-credit, before it runs out entirely.

Please stop calling it the “three horizontal lines”. It’s called the Model 3. The only reason to use the lines is if you’re using Tesla’s typeface, where E and 3 don’t have the vertical lines.

I’m not planning to replace my car until 2019, so I won’t be hurried into a decision.

I want a long-distance BEV so I’ll reserve the 3, and if it’s not available (possible), Tesla has gone bankrupt (very much possible in my opinion) or the 3 turns out to be too pricy for me (also very much possible), then I’ll look at long-range BEVs, which could be Bolt, Leaf 2 or whatever’s out there.

Lease the Bolt now, buy the Tesla later. Best to lease Bolt anyway as it will be quickly obsolete with only partial quickcharge capabilities (~40% charge in 30 minutes) and no factory quick charge infrastructure support like Tesla can offer.

The supercharger network is the main reason I will NOT buy a Tesla. I’m not going to get roped into buying into a proprietary charging system. Besides CCS is already more prominent in many parts of the country and in two years when the Model 3 comes out the CCS network should be much more developed.

BTW I’m not the only one that doesn’t like the idea of buying into a proprietary charging network.

I like the idea of an actual charging network. It must be different in Texas, because around my area I could go north or south and charge once as the Bolt got low and then be out of luck to go any farther. East and West would be even worse, no CCS within Bolt range. Meanwhile, all directions have superchargers allowing me to travel across multiple states.

Hell, even if this mythical CCS charing network for distance travel existed, the charge rate is poor in comparison. So, the network does not exist for many and even if it did, it’s sub-par. This is part of the problem with a non-proprietary solution, someone has to step up and fund it. GM is not. Blink and evGo are barely staying a float. The investment is not sufficient.

Listen to yourself. “Blink and EVgo are barely staying afloat.” But yet you want to invest in a changing infrastructure that is only supported by a single auto manufacturer, a small auto manufacturer at that.

The problem with many of the EVgo and Blink chargers is that they are in bad locations and they go unused. But many of those Superchargers are also seldom used. Blink has the support of business owners and EVgo has the support of both business owners and multiple auto manufacturers but who is supposed to pay for the Superchargers?

Tesla owners, that’s who. Either Tesla is going to have to keep the Model 3 price high to pay for those seldom used Superchargers or Tesla will drop the price of the Model 3 to compete with the Bolt. Either way the Superchargers will disappear because either Tesla will go bankrupt because their prices are too high or Tesla will stop supporting the Superchargers financially.

The Bolt is $37,500 base, evidently without DCFC charging. The model 3 is widely reported as being $35,000 base. I’m guessing without SC access, which I’m guessing, as that’s all we can do, will be $2000, brining it to $37,000. That is not an implausible scenario that does not match your assertions. We’ll know next week.

You make an interesting argument against the SC network vs CCS. Time will tell if your predictions come true. Others could have joined Tesla’s SC network, but did not. Proprietary solutions tend to drive Technology, and right now, the reality is the SC network is superior with regard for intercity travel and charging time. Given the last few years of charging network development, I expect that advantage will be even greater by the time the model 3 is on the roads. You seem to believe that will all come crashing down. We’ll see.

I would buy the Bolt now and pocket my $10k tax credit rather than waiting for 2 years for possible a fully loaded Model III close to $60k that will be eligible for much lower tax credits in 2018. I don’t think lower spec Model 3s will be available earlier than 2019.

For me Bolt is not an option as I would like a Tesla for lifestyle options. I can get to go from coast to coast, north to south, with a Tesla with the route nicely mapped out in the car. With a Bolt, nobody knows how it works or what quality problems it will have. It is quite a bit behind Tesla in production models for pure electric cars. Once Bolt’s run for 5 or 6 years then they will catch up to the current versions of Tesla… and by that time they will be much more ahead in terms of technology and reliability.

“GM has shown its cards. That’s the problem with going first. So how strong is GM’s hand? TeslaMondo sees a pair of sevens. Like, wow.”

Seriously? With a 60 kWh battery pack and five seats, if we’re using the poker hand analogy, that’s at least three kings, if not a full house! That’s not to say that Tesla can deliver something more compelling with the Model ≡, but they’re definitely gonna have to deliver something strong to be more compelling than the Bolt.

I wouldn’t be sarcastic nor taken the actual political US agenda, but here in Europe, poker it’s not so played. In the other cards games we have, even if some one have the equivalent of a full house he can be beat by some one who have a card that I think it calls a “trump” and win. (As I said I didn’t want to make a play on words with this word).
My think is that I wonder if Tesla have a trump with its supercharger network as I think that the true commitment of GM about EV should only be true if he make something like the Tesla network. After all what automaker invests all their fate and truly believe in the EV world advent and what automaker crushed (literally )this advent at its dawn in 2004 after making a deal with oil industry as they had already done in the 40s burning (one more time, literally) most of electric trolley city networks to make place to their cars with the help of Exon and corrupt regulators. Here in Europe we only have Opel as a GM brand, but they can keep their fake EV commitment for other blind people. Until they make this supercharger network my opinion will remain the same: the Bolt it’s an attempt to divert Tesla III potential owners, limiting Tesla cash flow to make them going bankrupt, and after every one would be able to go on with the business as usual as it was until Tesla appearing. I only want to be proved that I’m wrong, but all their cases about attempting to prohibited Tesla to sell in some States in not a good sign.

I take it you’re a Socialist? We who live under a capitalist economic system call that “competition”, and as long as nobody is cheating — as long as it’s a truly competitive market — then we think it’s a good thing. Those companies which can’t compete on a level playing field should go out of business.

However, when GM or its dealers try to unfairly use State laws to prevent Tesla from selling cars in their State… that’s anti-competitive and should be treated as the cheating that it is.

Every EV owner or future owner that doesn’t have piles of cash lying around has strategically contemplated their moves in buying, leaseing, or waiting for their now and future EV. I’ve done it over and over again waiting for the right time and the right vehicle. Right now I figure a year after the model 3 is being sold. Has to be right car, right range, right price.

For the average consumer, that’s a wise strategy. I understand and admire that many EV buyers are trying to make a “statement” ecologically, sociologically, economically and even politically. Vehicle purchases in general have historically been more “personalized” than those of other tools or appliances. But the majority of of buyers are cost constrained, and will not pass up a “great sale”.

In my case, I was comparing the Fiat 500, Smart, and Chevy Spark. I researched and test drove both the ICE and EV versions of all three. I LOVED the 500 and Spark EV (for different reasons) but the Chevy dealers were EAGER to lease me a Spark for far less than the Fiat dealers. My admittedly meager finances basically forced me to choose practicality over passion.

To be honest, I LOVE that EVs are advancing so rapidly. Rather than trading my Spark EV lease for a more expensive Bolt or 3 (with ranges I don’t need and won’t use) I will more than likely go back to purchasing conscientiously used vehicles.

One can, and probably SHOULD be willing to “sacrifice” to truly make a “statement”. But most of us are constrained enough to go with the best compromise available when we most need it.

I am totally interested in the Model 3. But with Tesla’s poor quality/reliability reputation, I would wait couple years before they work out all the bugs. Potentially they would upgrade few features as well.

In the mean time, I don’t need to give Tesla a free loan and I will be glad to use that toward a Bolt lease and see how it turns out.

Also, $37K is what you will pay at the end of the year for a Bolt. Who knows if the inflation is going to impact the actual selling price of the Model 3 two years from now…

Like others here, I continue to go over the timing and purchase planning. We’re a 2 car household and will replace both cars in the next few years.
2017 Q1/Q2 – We’ll lease a Bolt or the Nissan Gen 2 BEV (assuming 200+ miles of range) on a 2 year lease. We can throw Ford into the mix if they actually have a competitive offering. Doubtful, but anything is possible.
2018 Q2/Q3 – We’ll buy the Model 3 when our reservation is fulfilled (hopefully it will be fulfilled in Q2/Q3 2018).
2019 Q2 – when the 2 yr lease is up, we’ll buy a 250 to 300 mile AWD SUV BEV. What’s this called … oh yeah, the Model Y. If the Model Y isn’t available yet, we’ll extend the Nissan Gen 2 BEV lease a year and wait. With any luck the Model Y will be available by 2019/2020. Although, I doubt I’ll buy a Model Y if it has falcon wing doors.

I’m looking to see two things in the Model 3: Autopilot, and access to the Supercharger network (ie. coast to coast driving ability). I’ll plunk down my deposit next week, as I imagine both these items to be fulfilled. But if either is denied, I’ll seek my deposit refunded.

I have a 2013 Model S that is not being offered the autopilot upgrade. When I purchased it I was told that for a fee hardware could be added later. Not true. If they had been clearer I would have delayed my purchase.

Love the Supercharges. Drive from Massachusetts to Florida no problem.

I cant help but shake my head at the idiots running GM. Cadillac is their flagship, supposedly. Why in the world are they wasting a 200 mile range car on Chevy right now? First out of the gate should be a dressed up, higher performing Cadillac.

Cadillac should be leading the charge into EVs with cheaper badge engineered versions for Chevrolet, Buick and what not. All eyes would be on Cadillac with trickle down to the lesser brands.

But…GM seems intent of letting Cadillac flounder until it dies. Absolutely terrible brand management. And the EV window is rapidly closing, in fact, if the Model 3 is a real 3 series competitor, the window is shut.

not elitist at all. Cadillac is supposedly GMs halo brand. Introducing a tiny half baked EV in place of a proper, Tesla competitor, halo makes zero sense from a branding standpoint. Trickle down the cheapo Chevy and Buick versions, but lead with the flagship. Higher prices for the better version sustain the lower level versions and build upscale branding.

Elites = people who pay for the new stuff so the Cheapos can have nice stuff. That is how the world works.

GM has a problem that they got bailed out with gov’t money, and people say that GM gets $7500 in gov’t subsidies each time they sell a Volt or Bolt (not exactly true). So they have a hard time selling GM EV’s as Luxury Cadillac’s without getting attacked by one of the major political parties.

Tesla had so far managed to stay (mostly) under the radar, and attacks by Mitt Romney and others have fallen flat on their face.